5e Game

PRELIMINARY POST

I have ideas brewing in my head for a 5e D&D campaign (some of them suiting D&D as a setting for specific reasons). As a brief overview of where the GM thought-process is going: level 1 PCs, characters made as a group during 1-2 sessions. Making PCs as a group helps avoid overlap in abilities and figuring out how you want the group to mesh together on meta levels etc. which can be pretty useful. Plan to run it in game1 via Sparkie so we’ll be going more Theatre of the Mind than using grids [unlike 4e, one can do this with 5e]. If you have a character concept that you feel NEEDS grids (for tactics or what have you) chat with me and we’ll work stuff out OOCly. Expect PCs to level every 1-2 sessions early on, 23-4 later on.
Note: if players avoid certain classes, supplements can be worked out. EX: Potion Hut and Potion World supply ample healing potions and will compete for the business of your adventuring party. NPC hirelings to cover a missing class/skill/talent the group wants is entirely possible as well. They may, or may not, be named Bob.

Campaign-wise: the world is made up of varying small city-states with 7 known god and the existence of spells above level 5 is the stuff of myth and legend. (Cue PCs eventually becoming, you know, myth and legend :)) As the world is built on the back of many other nations etc. - and perhaps even gods, but that would likely be heresy to voice aloud, there is very little ore, minerals etc. that is safe to mine. As such, most coinage, supplies, magical relics are recovered by adventurers and sold/traded to the world at large via larger towns and cities in essence. You are rare - because it takes a long time to train people to reach even level 1 and also because not all adventurers last/survive to higher levels - and rewarded for that rarity with boons, gifts etc. as the game progresses.

(OOCly, there are potential downsides: NPCs may think the PCs vastly more powerful than they are and you are going to run into ruins/dungeons/ancient keeps that are far above your paygrade at any point. Most of the ‘easy’ stuff will have been done by other adventuring groups over the last century or so.)

Flavour-stuff: Infernal entities (and the language) are almost unknown, along with most high level monsters, magics etc.  It’s been a few centuries since empires and kingdoms fell apart in various wars and left a series of city-states rather than vast kingdoms  or empires. Feywild and Shadowfell are locations in the world, the elemental planes are known to exist to the adventuring class, but details tend to be not well known. The Underdark has mostly been taken over by a great white wyrm and its allies, so the drow exist bitterly on the surface and there is one city-state that is mostly inhabited by goblins, hobgoblins, orcs and ogres.

OVA ARENA GAME

Some call it the nexus of all realities, the holiest of places, the wellspring of eternity or the court of the mad gods. To those who live there, the city-state of Non is simply home. No one knows how the vast sprawling city came to exist, but all agree it would be famous even if was not the most famous place in all the universes. Billions of gates link it sporadically to every location in space and time and travel to it – and even from it – is a thing of legend in many places. Every story of a portal ends up here.

All portals lead to Non. That alone is fame enough. But there is also the Arena. And this elevates it into myth and stories almost no one dares believe. Because every few years there are a series of battles in 12 Arenas on Non, fortunes rising and falling until there is a victor. The victor replaces the last one in the Manifold Palace. They step in, become a living God, and remake the multiverse in their own image.

Sometimes everything is altered, or perhaps just their home dimension. No one knows. It is said, by those who work in the palace, that the god does not move. They sit, thoughts and will on matters that nothing mortal can understand, until the energy that made them is used up and another God replaces them. The time between Arenas varies: this much is known as truth. And also that no one has been able to wake one of the Living Gods, though few have been foolish enough to even try.

The Living God seems unable to get rid of Non, or the Arenas. Or perhaps, knowing of some wider world, they simply have no concern for such small things.

Not all who come to Non to fight in the Arena seek to win. Some arrive by accident and seek only to find a way home. Others see cures for other ailments or allies in different quests. The reasons are as varied as the fighters. Some are veterans of battles in far-off worlds. Others pacifists pushed to the breaking point. The universes they come from are as varied as their reasons for doing battle and as more and more battles are won, the press of Non begin to zero in on prospective winners and seek to learn about them. And, sometimes, learn enough to try and sabotage the changes of some would-be God.

Nothing is simple in Non, but perhaps the Living Gods would have it no other way.

GM Notes:

This is intended to be an Arena-style fighting game using OVA 2e. PCs begin with 5 free points, and can get up to 5 more by taking weaknesses accordingly. No ability can begin higher than +3 and OVA uses the [u] dice with Sparkie. The GM has developed a cheat sheet to explain how some abilities mesh and overlap.

Characters can be from any setting and genre you wish – making characters who are genre-savvy to other genres than an Arena one is also a recipe for fun. Motives and goals are entirely up to the players though making sure there aren’t too many cross-pollination of powers is a good idea. (More than 2 PCs with teleport etc. could get silly.) Unlike most games, the family of a PC is unlikely to be involved so the relations made among contestants and other PCs in the Great Game becomes a springboard for other adventures.

There will, naturally, be far more to the game than battles in arenas. More info. will be added this this in a few days.

OVA ARENA GAME

Some call it the nexus of all realities, the holiest of places, the wellspring of eternity or the court of the mad gods. To those who live there, the city-state of Non is simply home. No one knows how the vast sprawling city came to exist, but all agree it would be famous even if was not the most famous place in all the universes. Billions of gates link it sporadically to every location in space and time and travel to it – and even from it – is a thing of legend in many places. Every story of a portal ends up here.

All portals lead to Non. That alone is fame enough. But there is also the Arena. And this elevates it into myth and stories almost no one dares believe. Because every few years there are a series of battles in 12 Arenas on Non, fortunes rising and falling until there is a victor. The victor replaces the last one in the Manifold Palace. They step in, become a living God, and remake the multiverse in their own image.

Sometimes everything is altered, or perhaps just their home dimension. No one knows. It is said, by those who work in the palace, that the god does not move. They sit, thoughts and will on matters that nothing mortal can understand, until the energy that made them is used up and another God replaces them. The time between Arenas varies: this much is known as truth. And also that no one has been able to wake one of the Living Gods, though few have been foolish enough to even try.

The Living God seems unable to get rid of Non, or the Arenas. Or perhaps, knowing of some wider world, they simply have no concern for such small things.

Not all who come to Non to fight in the Arena seek to win. Some arrive by accident and seek only to find a way home. Others see cures for other ailments or allies in different quests. The reasons are as varied as the fighters. Some are veterans of battles in far-off worlds. Others pacifists pushed to the breaking point. The universes they come from are as varied as their reasons for doing battle and as more and more battles are won, the press of Non begin to zero in on prospective winners and seek to learn about them. And, sometimes, learn enough to try and sabotage the changes of some would-be God.

Nothing is simple in Non, but perhaps the Living Gods would have it no other way.

GM Notes:

This is intended to be an Arena-style fighting game using OVA 2e. PCs begin with 5 free points, and can get up to 5 more by taking weaknesses accordingly. No ability can begin higher than +3 and OVA uses the [u] dice with Sparkie. The GM has developed a cheat sheet to explain how some abilities mesh and overlap.

Characters can be from any setting and genre you wish – making characters who are genre-savvy to other genres than an Arena one is also a recipe for fun. Motives and goals are entirely up to the players though making sure there aren’t too many cross-pollution of powers is a good idea. (More than 2 PCs with teleport etc. could get silly.) Unlike most games, the family of a PC is unlikely to be involved so the relations made among contestants and other PCs in the Great Game becomes a springboard for other adventures.

There will, naturally, be far more to the game than battles in arenas. More info. will be added this this in a few days.

Low Life: Character Listing

PCs

Andrea: Electronics-shop worker who can teleport
Esmerelda: Would-be rocker who can manipulate electricity
Selena: Ex-military shut-in with the power to Scare people.
Tully: Telepathic stripper.
Yu: Fixer who can blow things up.


NPCs

Arnold: Scientist as Energon who, thanks to Tully, is developing Theories about powers.
Austin: Addict/Mugger who gains a new power when hurt. Yeah.
Brice: Andrea's friend; can heal appliances but when angered takes on a persona of armour, a sword and firey wings.
Claire: Woman 'kept' at Energon by scientists; she drains life energy for temp. boosts in strength and speed.
Dennis: The brains behind Wes's operation. Scary-smart.
Gary: Runs the electronics shop; secretly knows when and where he'll die.
Grant: 'Friend' of Andrea's who is full of secrets.
Irving: Ryan's friend. Can See things, and is a witch.

Kazimir: Old Russiah man who was part of Cold-War experiments. 

Kevin: Bitter 20-something Selena met; can see into the future a bit.   

Kim: McDonalds employee who can teleport in shadows and is insanely quick. Owns a ninja outfit.
Leo: PI who 'died' Monday night and is now something like a ghost.

Marvin: Chunky 17 year old with climbing powers.   

Ms. Osborne: famous local gossip. 

Ryan: Tully's little brother. Can turn into a the cutest doggie you ever saw! (Like that, but a mutt. Also cuter :))

Sandra: Can command people to do things; whereabouts unknown.   

Spencer: College student who can fire devastating energy blasts.
Tyner: Wes's gang, can turn into fire and control it. Unstable.
Wes: Gang member who now runs at least four gangs. Very strong and tough.
Yavin: 'low level face exploder' who works for Wes.
Zac: Teenager who can create butterflies and fly using fairy wings.


British Operatives

Ches (mentioned)
Mal/Chai/Hod: young thug with power over the earth. Currently trapped in shadows.
Zach: old balding man.

Low Life: Introduction.

It is Wednesday morning in Clearview Estates. It isn’t like last Wednesday. Honestly, it’s not even like last week in all the ways that matter. Oh, it’s the same crap living conditions, the same troubles with the authorities, but there is something new. A frisson in the air. Stories that are half-doubted, but there are many of them, growing every day. People who are doing things that people can’t do. Fire in fingertips. Flight. A girl who walks through shadows as though they were doors. People who can touch walls and break them with no effort at all. Some stories are about saints and devils, but most are just about weirdness. About people being able to somehow make the impossible real.

And you are one of those stories. Perhaps it started early Monday morning, when everything began. Some people claim there was a light show or meteor shower, but no one is sure if that was true. What’s now is the stories began, and they’ve been building. Everyone knows one, or knows someone who knows some story they half-believe is true. The Estate is changing, but no one knows into what. No one knows why, or even how. Did the government experiment on people? Were there aliens involved? No one knows.

There seem to be no answers save for those found within. Gifts. Talents. Abilities beyond the ordinary. Some are welcomed, some shunned, some baffling or useless. But they mean the world has changed, in ways large and small, and no one can be sure where it is leading.

Only there have been more police cars around during the day – and even at night – than usual. As though the authorities are aware the zeitgeist has changed, but have no idea what to make of it yet.

It is a warm spring day, and the world feels as though it is holding its breath, but that could be your imagination and nothing more ....

GM Note: The first use of power(s) is often tied to emotion. Maybe trying to get someone to be quiet, shut off an alarm, deal with having forgot your keys: something triggers you, and power(s) manifest. You’ve no idea if you have more, or really how to test them, or how many people like this exist.

Low Life: Clearview Estates

Clearview Estate – “Where the future waits for you!”

Clearview Estate was built during the Projects boom of the 1950s when housing estates were a leg up, a place where one could regroup and move forward. The original Estate was a city block with four large fifteen-storey high-rises (two of them connected together); a smaller fifth building was added twenty years after that and by the 80s desperate attempts to revitalize the project led to removing much of the green space in the middle and added town homes that ended up being as neglected as the rest of the Estate. Unlike other housing projects, Cleaview hasn’t been featured in horror movies or was made on land that developers wanted to claim for other uses. The lack of low-rent housing in the city had made razing and rebuilding it not politically feasible so politicians have turned blind eyes upon it.

The Estate was made with noble goals, but almost no maintenance happens – to save money for the city housing authority – and the eventual belief that people living in it somehow deserve to had seeped into popular culture like pus out of a wound. Every election cycle politicians drag out a handful of success stories as though it makes up for the horror stories that go unreported. Clearview isn’t where you go when you hit rock bottom. It’s what happens when you hit rock bottom and are handed a shovel and told to start digging.

LAYOUT

North-East: Crack Towers. Even the management refers to Haversham Towers as Crack Towers. Most of the dealers and customers are small time and the police don’t even bother responding to calls about drug use in the Estate any longer thanks to the reputation of the building. The management does try and root out dealers, but it takes time and tribunals and isn’t always successful – nor safe.

North-West: Concrete Jungle (once known as Greenview Heights) is a concrete slab of a building that was painted green, covered in moss and meant to resemble the parks within Clearview Estate. Theyh saved the money spent on the exterior by not plastering any of the interior. The moss is long gone and the green now resembles some of the more distressing options in the Dulux colour chart. The building is cracked, decaying, moldly and in the worst shape of the four original buildings.

South-West: The Twin Towers, so named because they were connected together at the tenth-storey mark. The only part of Clearview to have underground parking, it earned a new name as the Trade Towers post 9/11 since a lot of the underground parking is used up with various spray paints and cheap chop shops on stolen vehicles.

The South-East addition of Galloway Place – known as the Gallows – is a seven story hellhole, even to the people living in it. Each rentable room can fit a bed and small couch, sometimes a dresser. There is one communal fridge in the hallway of each floor and the basement contains communal bathroom and showering facilities. Clearview lore has it that you can catch STDs just by breathing in the air of the Gallows basement. It’s the last place you live before being homeless, the one place that takes cash with no questions asked.

The Clearview Greens town homes are all similar eighties two-storey affairs with faded green siding. Almost none have working shutters anymore and thirty years of neglect has not been kind to them either.

REALITIES:

Building maintenance is non-existent. Power and water failures are common.

Most everyone uses cell phones linked to the crappy free city wi-fi since reliable internet service is a joke. TVs, on the other hand, aren’t a problem. One company is said to have actually showed up with a SWAT team top guard them while they and installed TVs for four homes and no one batted an eye. (This didn't actually happen, but it's entered local folklore as fact.)

Jobs are scarce, and getting a job rather difficult since many employers automatically dismiss anyone living in Clearview from consideration. Insurance is a joke.
The police tend to only come in cars of two or more, and seldom after dark. While there are gangs in Clearview, the general belief is that the police are the worst gang of all.

The local school – Thompson Farms Elementary – is notorious for its lack of gym, auditorium and even cafeteria, to say nothing of textbooks that aren’t grossly out of date. Typing classes are still taught on typewriters in order to save money.

Things have changed a little, thanks to social media. Some people posted enough photos of the state of decay in washrooms and units that the city had to begin spending some money in cleanups, but unfortunately the moment public attention turns away the city does as well. And the public has a rather short attention span.

Sadly, this isn’t the worst of the projects. Everyone has heard of Henry Horner Homes and Cabrini-Green in Chicago. Everyone knows it could be far worse than it is, but some days that isn’t the comfort it tries to be.


General Note: Despite the conditions of living at Clearview, it is better than being on the streets would be. Building repair is entirely done by local work at best but people do try and look out for each other the same as they do anywhere else. There are assholes everywhere, after all, and where one lives does not change that. 

Low Life: System

Dice: Risus, but with OVA dice (u3 for 3 dice and so forth). OVA dice work akin to Yahtzee, a la:

u3: 6 from [6, 4, 1]

u6: 8 from [2, 1, 2, 5, 4, 4]
The chief benefit of this is that an increase in dice is no guarantee for victory and also fits into discovery and useage of ones abilities.

Regular Cliche: you have 7 dice to put into normal cliches; none can be more than 3 dice.

Power: You have six dice to play with. You can have one power at 6 or two medium powers (3/3 or 4/2). One power is generally reserved for the more powerful abilities, two for complementary ones that fit the character.

Power level: low-tier X-men is the mental starting point. So the limited abilities of the original X-men could qualify and so forth. Characters will get more powerful as the game progresses in their abilities rather than gaining more powers.

Boost: You begin with 0 dice in boost. This is gained via RP, awesome moments etc. and basically becomes bonus dice to apply to situations in the game. If you want your PC to begin with Boost that regenerates daily (1-2 points) you can add some flaw to your power(s) as agreed by the GM. (In x-men terms, Cyclops not being able to turn off his powers or Beast looking like a beat would qualify.)

Damage: Roll dice, whoever wins the encounter (the defender wins ties) does the difference between them (in the above example, 2 damage). Certain abilities will increase this naturally as will weapons.

(Armour exists, reducing total damage from a hit by 1-2 points.)

Health: Regular people have 5-10 health as their base, depending on jobbs, general health and so forth. If you have abilities that are combat/survival;-based, you get more health. [Roughly 3 points/level, though variation can apply.] This does mean that PCs are not initially any kind of bullet-sponges and will need to act accordingly. It means the average person will have between 10-15 health most likely in total. 

Note: This is very rough and a first draft: it can be altered before the game begins, or even during play (if everyone is seen as having too much or little health).  

LOW LIFE: an RPG Campaign

(To ring in the new year; this probably wouldn't run until after Mid-Feb. since I won't be around for the start of that month.)

Low Life is centred about low lives, the disenfranchised and the unfranchisable. The PCs all live in a housing project that the police try to avoid when possible – it’s the kind of place where even those who live there would consider a carpet bombing to be a civic improvement, the sort of housing that it’s a crime to live in but somehow not a crime to own and rent out. Landlords are delinquent at best, malicious at worst, and it’s the last step before the streets for many families. The Everway Housing Project started life as an attempt to boost the lives of the destitute, back in the day when living in the projects just meant you were in a slump and being on welfare wasn’t seen as a moral flaw. Now it’s the kind of place the city likes to pretend doesn’t exist, one bad apple in a bunch scattered together like boils in the heart of what once was a vibrant downtown core. You live in a place of the violent and grubby desperation that lies under all the grandiose ambitions of the world, and you know just know wrong the american dream can be and just how ugly those who can help really act once the media can’t see them.

No one admits to living here if they can avoid it; many employers write off anyone who comes from it as a matter of course. If the police come, it’s in riot gear and in the knowledge almost no one is going to be stupid enough to try and video them. Not everyone is a criminal – far from it – but it’s easier to be one than anything else, and too easy to fall when you’ve got nothing left to live for at all. Most TVs have been sold to pawn shops, many others are broken as a result of items being hurled through them after seeing another report about affluenza or another TV show set in some mythical America that doesn’t exist at all.

Only something has changed. Perhaps an accident, or some government weapon. One day you were normal, and now – now you’re something more than human. You can do things other people can’t. Things out of stories and comic books, are an impossibility walking about a world of drab possibilities.

Longfellow wrote that ‘One half the world must sweat and groan that the other half may dream’... only now it is far more than half, and your groans have been among them. You have power. And those in charge are probably shitting themselves right now...

System: Unsure, at the moment. The Cypher System Superhero variant might work well because it would work better for more gritty games. I think? The OVA-Risus variant could work as well (and require less work on everyone’s part).

Note: PCs will have 1 or 2 powers. Power ceiling will be at weak-marvel range. In other words, you can have Invulnerability, but it will have limits. Be super strong, but only to so many limited tons of weight. Be fast, not still visible to people. Etc.

If you have one power, you can pass entirely as human if you want to. If you have two, you don’t pass as human anymore. (Exactly how far you want to take that is up to each PC; consider Nightcrawler in the x-men as a rough starting point – you need to hide your appearance.)

Optionally, you can have your power be stronger than the norm, but when you push it your appearance changes etc.

Theme/Tone: This game is about what happens when the least in society gain power, and how society responds. It is up to the players if their characters decide to be villains, heroes, or inhabit the shades of grey everyone else lives in their lives in. We live in a digital age, and that will affect everything for good or ill – you won’t be able to hide, but neither will the regular media be able to smear you quite as easily as they would otherwise.

Note: this will be a superhero-style game if players want that: my default assumption is that PCs will take steps to improve their own lives via power(s) – ideally with the aid of others, since they aren’t that powerful on their lonesome – and no one is going to put on suits to fight crime. Which doesn’t mean PCs can’t do that, only that it should be run by other players and such as well as to what tone people want the game to take.

The arc the campaign itself takes will be determined by the players and GM prior to the start of the game so that everyone is roughly on the same page. 

Secrets of the Weave: Character Listing

PCs

Ankita, the Mechanical glaive who Fuses Flesh and Steel [Out2lunch]
Kishan, the Learned nano who Rides the Lightning [Tass]
Molly Skips, the  Impulsive Nano  who Exists in Two Places at Once [Thistle]
Rel, the Jack who ?   [Chaos]

NPCs

Bastom: ruler of Jortul, the City of Children

Oburrr: aeon priest who is apparently the entire clave in the town

Phey: Moss-covered 'youth' a shade shorter than Molly. 

Campaign: Secrets of the Weave

Everyone knows of the Wandering Walk, the road that some say crosses the entire world, the road that is littered with pilgrims and travellers. But the Winding Way is something else, a path few know about and fewer approach an understanding of. The way isn't a road, in any strict sense. it is narrow and winding, connecting the claves and aldeia [villages] of the Beyond together, slowly, into a more cohesive whole. Who, or what, is doing this is unknown but the roads formed by the Way are all marked by dead stones, glass like a mirror made of darkness. The paths are too narrow and winding for use by merchants, and few travel between the aledia of the Beyond for reasons of safety or sanity -- but adventurers are slowly finding the Winding Way and making use of it, as are those people brave enough to try and visit their neighbours in a world where every village can be world unto itself, with only the claves of the aeon priests providing a common tongue of nothing else.

Your wanderings have taken you to the edges of Jortul, known as the City of Children for only children can easily traverse the inner city of small buildings and ramps designed long ago for inhabitants smaller than human adults and perhaps devoid of legs. The local ruler is seeking people to take goods to the north, for Jortul trades with most towns -- for free -- in exchange that no one tries to destroy the city and plunder the gardens said to be hidden under it that crate it's bounty of fresh produce. And since no one knows how far the war in the north extents, they've had little luck getting anyone to venture into the deep north along the mountains known as the Black Riage.

Until, perhaps, now ...


For Tass and Lunchie [a reference]

things learned in the last 3-4 years:

• most towns do not have the same wealth of numenera that Milvane had. (Or, if they do, it has been more thoroughly plundered.)
• there are very few stories about Earthlings, or people looking like them. Clearly their other cities are far better at non-involvement. That, or they are spread out further than it is comfortable to think about.
• flashes of genius are common: most places have at least 1-2 working items from the past, and sometimes even someone who knows roughly how to use it still. (The exceptions tend to be places where things went rather south and a lot of people died and/or mutated so the community avoids such things like a plague.)
• the Truth is definitely alive in a way that other languages aren’t. If you speak it to someone in a town, within hours to days everyone in the town knows the language. Sometimes they realize how strange that is, but not that often.
• Clife is known just about everywhere that there are a lot of mutants (if only by the mutants); knowing of him generally affords one a wary respect.
• the long-dead(?) nano known as Iksobar isn’t common knowledge; most aeon priests refuse to admit he/she/it ever existed; Milvane either had a superior library or there was more to Miralb than meets the eye. Or both.  
• Ralc Orfta is active and infamous as a treasure-hunter of numenera as much as for armour that it said to be the highest achievement of some prior world.
• automatons tend to know a little more about the ‘broken weave’ than most, and it seems to be tied into the datasphere somehow. Beyond that, most think it just a term without any real meaning if they think of it in depth at all. 
• If Jisell or her clones are active, you’ve heard nothing at all. The odds are very good they are somewhere in the Beyond but it is a very large expanse of space.
• From time to time you get rumours out of Milvane that have turned the group of you into very strange stories.*

* none about Victa, thankfully.

For the most part, it’s been quiet for the both of you since that time. You’ve acquired a foundling, stayed in some towns for a season at times (depending on travel and needs) but the urge to Do Things is growing, and the world is full of secrets and mysteries you’ve barely plundered, and knowledge and power you can use to become more, or change who you are... and Zia, for all her canny madness, thought far too small indeed.

The world is full of opportunities. So what ones does your PC look for, and to what end? Becoming ‘normal’ again? Wealth? Immortality? Knowing secrets that no one else knows? Protecting people from harm and terrible things beyond understanding? There are answers to be found, and questions to learn and things to discover that could shake the foundations of the world.

Between-Campaign Info

Things you have learned in four years:

The Aeon Priesthood is headquartered in Qi, a vast city of mind-boggling size, it’s population perhaps dwarfing the entirety of Thaemor. But the larger countries that make up the Steadfast are far richer affairs, and with that wealth comes politics and posturing and a war far too the north with an enemy some darkly suspect doesn’t even exist. The Amber Pope is powerful, perhaps even a just man, and there is no denying that the papacy learned many terrible secrets and lore from the amber monolith – Jisell alone was proof of that. But knowledge is a far different thing to wisdom, and the aeon priests found further from the capital, scattered about the beyond and seeking to understand the numenera for its own sake, tend to be true seekers and teachers both.

It is not as if the Steadfast is a terrible place. Far from it, but it is a place of merchants and armies, not one for wanderers who call none of their kingdoms home. The vastness of what the inhabitants of the Steadfast call the Beyond is many things – it is far more dangerous, but there are few kingdoms, many villages that seldom even see brave merchants, let alone seekers such as yourselves. There are caravans to guard, merchants to protect and wars to be had, but they are small things with small goals, the spectacle of the ninth world playing out like children with toys they barely dip into a sandbox.

Zia is, perhaps, mad. But she turned Milvane into far more than town. And the world is awash in information, in secrets, even in power if one has the will and wherewithal to claim it. Few people do. Most towns are small affairs, the inhabitants hungry to choose safety over freedom, but there are always other options, always new routes. And the further you go from the Steadfast, the less worry you have about local rulers claiming prizes or the local clave of aeon priests declaring that all numenera must be brought before them.

Even the Wandering Walk that some claim circles the world is crowded with hungry pilgrims and envying eyes. But further, east of the ocean, are lasts no one in the Steadfast as mapped. Towns, villages, entire kingdoms who may not even know the rest of the world exists. And you are strange, but not too strange for most places. The world is full of knowledge; the question is, what do you desire to use it for?

Numenera Campaign 2

Yonder GM is waiting on the world guide before running the second campaign. Plans thus far:

Travel! The first campaign was a test-run of the system for everyone, hence being based in one area with everything radiating out from that. This campaign will be more a case of travelling along various roads, pathways and exploring parts of the Beyond and even further. Players shall be poked beforehand about what they want in terms of awesome things to find/character growth/skills/learning and the campaign that develops will weave itself around that. Some characters from the first campaign may return, possibly not.


Characters

Some players are playing characters from the last game, others new ones. This campaign is going to allow the foci and descriptors from the main rule book along with the character options book. (Players playing characters they already made who want to rejig them and the like are welcome to chat with me on that; have no problem with it.)

So far the concept is to make the characters all one family (adopted or otherwise). As the ninth world doesn't conform to modern earth players are free to ignore the structures -- for power and otherwise -- in our understanding of families and go nuts making up some other structure, formal or otherwise. Figure out something neat everyone can agree on -- which, ideally, doesn't involve the PCs being slaves to the hive mind of a dicebot patriarch. Because there are limits.


Fallout from the first campaign:

The village of Milvane has become a power unto itself in Thaemor , using technology from long-dead civilizations and alliances with nearby communities to hold off both the kings armies and perhaps fracture the entire kingdom. In less than a year the town went from a nothing town in a minor kingdom to a force to be reckoned with, said to have access to armies all its own and an army of machine-men and mutants at its disposal.

No one agrees on what happened or even why, just that the town showed people how much could be gained if they were willing to take the risks necessary for growth. Since there at least a dozen small towns in the Steadfast have ceased to exist, become craters, or far worse with the Aeon Priests scrambling to put out fires.

It does mean that the Steadfast is a little less safe to travel in and is shaking up some aldeia even in the Beyond as places try and replicate the success of Milvane. Luckily, most people attribute all of that to Zia -- whose PR has been very, very good -- and almost no one is aware of the hired help who did more than the villagers themselves to bring about those changes.


Rules Changes:

PCs will get to pick the cyphers they begin the game with.  I am going to assume that they have done trades, made plans etc. before the first session so their initial complement of one-shot tricks is at least decent. You'll be able to find traders selling some in aldeia, various oddities and cyphers as you explore places and we'll explore the PCs making the cyphers from found things a lot more than the last campaign did. Ideally.


If there are critters in the book you want to show, or certain weird shit you'd like to see happen, poke me about it. The plan is for a longer campaign with plots growing at a slow build over time.


Sessions:

Given schedules, hoping for at least twice a week.

Ze New Year!

So. Plans. Currently Fennec and Kentari are running games.

I (aka Alcar) am just doing one side game at the moment.

The plan, at least for me, is as follows:

The numenera world guide comes out late this month; I'll snag it, read it it and etc. and sometime during February there shall be a new Numenera game offered up. I've hashed out the idea in the channel, but the basic premise will be the game is set a few years after the first one and the game will be about the pcs travelling/exploring rather than being based out of any one location.

As players know the system/setting well now, the character options book shall be free to use for the game, which shall let everyone go nuts with options for new PCs.

The PCs of the previous campaign won't show up, but they will be stories/legends in this game that players get to make and have fun with it. For reference, the town of Milvane has become a city-state within the kingdom of Thaemor ruled by itself, due to alliances with underground-dwelling 'humans', robot allies, energy sources akin to perpetual power for the settlement and so forth. That one town managed to become such a thing is making other towns consider options and shaking the status quo of the Steadfast, sending reverberations out into the Beyond of what can be accomplished with the old world if one comes at it with a vision of the future.


Alternatively, if players aren't up for numenera gain so soon, we can always figure out some other game to run instead. Sparkie just insists the game can't use Amber, of course.

SPARKIE: THE EXPANSION

https://twitter.com/dicebotofdoom

Now my dice rolls in games will appear online! Unless using it murders me again and esper.net has another fit. But it will show dice rolls and NOT be dicebot-shaming but a small sampling of my being AWESOME. 

(Also, to get this to work I had to turn Alcar into MY bot and that is the best thing in ever. So there.)

Numenera Character List & XP Log

Player Characters:

• Ryll the Mystical nano who Controls Beasts [Caltak]
• Victa the Intelligent jack who Explores Dark Places [Thistle]
• Ankita the Mechanical glaive who Fuses Flesh and Steel [Out2lunch]
• Kishan the Learned nano who Rides the Lightning [Tass]
• Ayjh, the Swift jack who Works Miracles [Beardliest]
• Sparkie the Fire Elemental Bot who Rolls Dice to Decide Destroy Distort Reality

To those who want to streamline making their character, I recommend this!

Overall Type Composition:

• Glaive = 1
• Jack = 2
• Nano = 2
• Dicebot = 1

Experience Points:

• General: 3 to Ryll, Victa, Ankita, Kishan
• GM Intrusion: 1 to Ankita, Kishan
• GM Intrusion: 1 to Victa, Kishan
• General: 2 to Ryll, Victa, Ankita, Kishan
• [8/16] RP: 1 to Ryll
• [8/18] Discovery/RP: 2 to Victa, Ankita, Kishan, Ayjh
• [8/19] Discovery: 2 to Ryll
• [8/20] RP: 1 to Ryll
• [8/20] Discovery: 3 for all PCs
• [8/26] GM Intrusion: 1 to Ankita, Kishan
• [8/27] GM Intrusion: 1 to Ryll, Kishan
• [8/27] Discovery: 2 for Victa, Kishan, Ryll.  1 for Lunchie for kitten discovery.
• [8/29] GM Intrusion: 1 to Ankita, Kishan
• [8/29] Discovery: 3 to all PCs
• (9/1) 3 for Victa, Ankita, Kishan

Experience Gain Totals (By PC):

• Ankita = 21
• Ayjh = 8
• Kishan = 23
• Ryll = 18
• Victa = 19